[ExI] snowden paradox: was: RE: Sanders, Clinton and Trump

[Adrian Tymes]

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 6:17 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Have we any reporters not in the echo-chamber, and if not, do they count
> as reporters?  Or are they to be assigned as enemies of the state?  If so,
> does it constitute treason to give them stories?
>
That sort of thing is part of Trump's (and Sanders') appeal: voters see
that this kind of game is being played, are pretty sure that an insider
like Clinton will continue doing so, and want it stopped.  However, most of
them might not be able to put it in exact words like this...not that it
matters, since they think no candidate other than the Democrat or
Republican one stands a chance, and cast their votes accordingly making
that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That said, reporters not in the echo chamber are not "enemies of the
state".  Certain parts of the US government have tried that approach, and
gotten their hands slapped by the courts.  For example, Chelsea Manning was
charged with "communicating with the enemy" when he leaked stuff to
WikiLeaks.  He was acquitted, apparently in part because the judge refused
to apply an "enemy of the state" label to Julian Assange just because he
was leaking information to the public, no matter how classified or
sensitive.

This further muddles the public's anger: declaring these people enemies
isn't successful when it was tried, but that it was even attempted riles
the public.  Some never heard that the attempt failed, so they wind up
thinking it happened and is naturally expanding to other groups - and see
it eventually extending to whatever subgroup that individual prole is a
member of.

A mass education program, giving most of the public accurate facts as to
what actually happened (and more importantly, didn't happen) on this and
several other high-profile cases over the past few years, would likely
result in interesting changes to how the public votes.  Unfortunately, too
many of those in Congress fear (probably correctly, in most cases) that
such changes would include no longer voting for them.
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